The Hindu                         11.04.2013

Corporation’s plan to produce bio-gas to take shape soon

S. Ganesan

To start with, the bio-digester will be of 10-tonne capacity.

After several abortive attempts to go in for a
waste-to-energy project, the Tiruchirapalli City Corporation’s plans to
generate bio-gas from municipal solid waste is likely to take shape soon
as Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has announced allocation of funds for
the project in Tiruchi and other urban local bodies.

The
city on an average generated about 436 tonnes of solid waste every day.
Of this, 416 tonnes are estimated to be collected and removed to the
garbage dumps. This, civic officials, say offered scope for generating
power from the municipal solid waste in the city.

In
August last year, the corporation announced a plan to install a
bio-digester at the Gandhi Market, one of the biggest markets in the
State, to produce bio-gas from organic solid waste. The Gandhi Market
generates about 40 tonnes of organic solid waste every day, including
vegetable, fruit, and meat wastes. The corporation has hit upon the idea
of going in for a bio-digester which would generate bio-gas that could
be converted into energy. The concept was said to have been successfully
tried in some parts of the country

Although details
of the project proposed by the government, in the wake of Chief
Minister’s announcement in the Assembly on Wednesday, is awaited, civic
officials say that the project is likely to take off soon.

The
civic body had decided to invite expression of interest for the pilot
project to be taken up under Build-Own-Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model
and identify an agency with necessary experience to design, operate and
maintain it for three years before handing it over to the Corporation.
The project could now be implemented with financial assistance from the
government. The bio-digester is likely to be installed at the G.Corner
grounds in the city.

The energy produced could be possibly used for public lighting.

A senior Corporation officer told
The Hindu
that the civic body would take up the project on a small scale, to start
with, and the bio-digester would be of a capacity to handle about 10
tonnes of organic wastes a day.

“We could scale up
the project later and expand the project in a decentralised manner to
set up similar bio-digesters in each of the four zones in the
Corporation,” he said.

Over the past decade, the
Corporation had drawn similar plans at least twice earlier but all of
them failed to take off from the drawing board stage.

In
2007, the civic body had explored the possibility of roping in an
Italian company as technology partner for setting up the power plant.
Corporation officials had then said that a study conducted by the Anna
University had indicated that nearly 2.5 to 3 mega watt of power could
be produced from the solid waste generated in the city.

Even
last year, the Corporation announced its intent to revive a proposal to
generate power from municipal solid waste and the Corporation Council
approved a move to commission a consultant to prepare a detailed project
report.

But civic officials say that projects on big
scale could not be taken up as the calorific value of solid waste
generated in the city is considered to be low. Besides, the civic body
was not sure of the financial viability of such a big project and its
sustainability in the absence of source segregation of solid wastes.